Customer Reviews

Nashville 1864 -The Dying of the Light: A Novel

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I am sometimes disappointed with fictional accounts of the U.S. Civil War, perhaps because the historical accounts are so remarkable in themselves that they seldom benefit from fictional license. There are indeed exceptions, splendid novels like The Red Badge of Courage, Andersonville, The Killer Angels, and the subject of this review, Nashville 1864 - The Dying of the Light, by Madison Jones.

In this fascinating short novel Confederates forces are continuing to fight against overwhelming odds, with little hope of victory. Nashville has been occupied by Northern soldiers since February, 1862. In a desperate attempt, General Hood's shattered forces, severely crippled shortly before in the disastrous battle at Franklin, Tennessee, are now engaging the Union Army in what is today called the Battle of Nashville, December 15 and 16, 1864.

Madison Jones portrays this battle and its immediate aftermath from the perspective of a young boy, Steven Moore, as he searches for his father among the wounded Confederate soldiers. The story is presented as a memoir written by the adult Steven Moore many years after the actual event, but nonetheless filled with detail and emotion that remained deeply etched in his memory. Steven Moore had not forgiven the North for its severe, mean-spirited occupation of Nashville, especially the period under General Rosecrans.

This short novel, Nashville 1864 - The Dying of the Light, is good, powerful fiction, and it is also good history.

At the outbreak of the Civil War, 12-year-old Steven Moore watches on as his father Jason saddles up his horse to join other Confederates in the fight to protect Tennessee. After many months of hardship, Steven's youngest sister, Liza, becomes so gravely ill that he decides to find his father and to bring him home. With his mother's approval and a crude map, he and his companion, a young slave named Dink, set off into the heart of the battle to find his father.

This is one of the most compelling novels of the Civil War, told from the perspective of a 12-year-old boy. Through his eyes, we see the area surrounding Nashville change from healthy farmland to desolate battle fields. The Confederate soldiers whom he knew to be proud and strong turn out to be haunted men with sallow faces, bare feet and rags for clothing. He and Dink watch some of the fighting firsthand: the booming of the canons, the black troops fighting for the Union, the dead and the dying everywhere. And, still he continues to search for his father, diving deeper and deeper into the heart of the battle.

With fantastically detailed imagery and strongly developed characters, Madison Jones has created a Civil War novel that appeals to all readers, both young and old. You have a real sense of what the war must have been like for a young boy, witnessing his family life upturned and almost destroyed. Nothing is romanticized. A strong novel for young adults and anyone interested in the Civil War.

Madison Jones is one of the unheralded masters of contemporary American fiction. He has written powerful, compelling stories dealing with such explosive issues as racism (in his masterpiece A CRY OF ABSENCE), drugs, family conflict, and sex (AN EXILE, turned into the Gregory Peck film I WALK THE LINE).

In the present volume Jones turns his attention to the waning days of the War Between the States, in which a young boy, with his black companion, goes searching for his father. This is not sugar-coated stuff. Jones casts an unflincing eye on the events, related in memoir form by the adult Steven, and the descriptions of war and its carnage are often graphic (but never exploitively so)in the manner, say, of Spielberg's SAVING PRIVATE RYAN. Jones never loses his moral focus, however. This is a story of love and courage, faithfulness and innocence, determination and loyalty.

A short work but memorable nonetheless, by a novelist long overdue greater and wider attention.

It is clear today that the Southern Confederacy is regarded as an evil aberration in American history. Many books and films depict the gray-coated Rebs as uncouth huns bent upon the destruction of a paternal and benevolent Union. Today, their symbols are reviled and their memory is denounced as if four states of the Confederacy weren't also Founding colonies themselves.

Nashville 1864 is told from the point of view of a 12 year-old boy, but the narrative is suitable for adults as well. Imagine an American city occupied by an enemy army. We have to reach all the way back to the Revolutionary War period for a practical analogy, but that period is so far behind us it is difficult create a connection within our 21st Century minds. The Civil war, however, is much closer to us. Young people may not be able to empathize, but people in their late-forties and older will probably remember a grandfather or great grandfather who lived during that time, so for us the Civil War is still real. Nashville was occupied by the Union Army, and the bitterness from that occupation still shows up from time to time.

Madison Jones' descriptions of the period and the emotion and the misery of war are vivid. When young Steven Moore's father tells him, "They have beat us, Steven", you can feel the agony and despair, and so throughout the book.

There are many great Civil War novels, but Nashville 1864 should not be overlooked.

A little novel about the War of Secession that is narrated in the voice of a young Southern boy from Nashville. The boy is caught up in a maelstrom of violence and is continuously trying to avoid danger and get to his father who is fighting for the Confederate cause somewhere nearby. His travels and adventures recall those of Huckleberry Finn and Jim, since our hero also has a black companion. The big themes of the war are the scenario that mix with the more immediate lives of these two young kids: It is very interesting to see how the big picture, History with capital h, is filtered through the innocent eyes of young men, how they see and feel their circumstances, how they understand what is going on around them, and, most of all, how they judge their roles in that history.

I recommend this little jewel of a book. It is a great historical novel, and helps us adults see our unbending positions on major issues that divide nations and peoples as folly, something that kids only would act up but never take so seriously as to kill their neighbor over it. Distance yourself from reality through the eyes of innocent children, and you'll see how irrational we adults can behave. A healthy and poetic little novel filled with Southernness and sensibleness.

Amazon.com have informed me that my review of Nashville 1865 has been swollowed into the land of computer nothingness. So impressed was I with the book that I'm posting the review a second time.

One sitters - they don't come around too often but when they do it's worth the wait. I read Nashville 1864 in one evening and wished I hadn't! This little novel - some 129 pages in length - contains so much in it's pages that it left me moved, sad, a little repulsed at the nature of war and death, but thankful I'd stumbled accross it while browsing Amazon.

I'd just finished Cloudsplitter by Russel Banks which at 758 pages is an intense and powerful read. Nashville was the ideal follow on - it's short, to the point, refreshing in it's simplicity and more importantly an entertaining, quality novel.

Jones is a wonderful storyteller, not a word out of place, not a wasted sentiment or action, this book involves you as a reader on a range of levels.

Often the Civil War is portrayed in a romantic light, thus reflecting how it was commonly percieved in the immediate aftermath of the shelling of Fort Sumter on April 12th 1861. Nashville is harrowing and disturbing rather than romantic, and here lies it's strength. The novel is honest and if that means leaving me as a reader slightly uneasy then it's done exactly what good writing attempts to do - to have an effect.

Some books after their reading will sit on my shelf gathering dust, I don't think that Nashville will be given enough time to gather dust at all.

My interest in Civil War fiction started after reading Cold Mountain. When I saw Madison Jones' book reviewed in Chronicles Magazine I thought I must give it a try as well. And I am so glad I did! Jones has reached into the depths of the human instinct for survival in the face of doom and fashioned a masterpiece that will chill you to the bone. It is no wonder that it has garnered two literary awards so far. The most significant charm of the book for me was his avoidance of politically correct modern-day notions of antebellum racial relations (white man as oppressor; black man as victim), instead portraying a white family and their black servants in a situation of harmony, love, and mutual respect. This was quite a shock to me, having been brainwashed by public school propaganda and the media-fed hoax casting all white Southerners as brutal demons. (Northerners are always too enlightened and thus could never be racist right?). What a delight to see the table turned toward a scenario that was probably much closer to the truth in the majority of cases. It is this image of the war that I will forever carry with me, and I am indebted to Mr. Jones for bestowing it upon me.

I was not prepared for how much of a personal connection this story would make me feel with the late unpleasantness. Madison Jones placed his characters on Shy's hill as the Confederates made their "great mistake" and had them caught up in the tragic yet dignified retreat of General Hood's army.
As someone who has focused at times on the legal aspects of the war I enjoyed the new perspective this book offered me. One of a young boy who was caught up in a hostile occupation while trying to protect and help his family. It was doubly refreshing considering the difficulty in coming across any literature that doesn't seek to damn the memory of the south for its participation in the inherited tradition of chattel slavery. Instead of taking the easy rout, Jones handles the peculiar institution maturely and fairly in his story neither romanticizing or demonizing it.
Having lived on the battle field where this book took place for years, I was familiar with most of the land marks described in the story. Jones has given me a much greater sense of the rich history of the city I live in.

Service was great - I had read this book before and wanted a friend to have it. It was mailed to her in a prompt manner and in excellent condition.

One sitters - they don't come around too often but when they do it's worth the wait. I read Nashville 1864 in one evening and wished I hadn't! This little (but I might add perfectly formed) novel - some 129 pages in length - contains so much in it's pages that it left me moved, sad, a little repulsed at the nature of war and death, but thankful I'd stumbled across it while browsing Amazon.

I'd just finished Cloudsplitter by Russel Banks which at 758 pages is an intense and powerful read. Nashville was the ideal follow on - it's short, to the point, refreshing in its simplicity and more importantly an entertaining, quality novel.

Jones is a wonderful storyteller, not a word out of place, not a wasted sentiment or action, this book involves you as a reader on a range of levels.

Often the Civil War is portrayed in a romantic light, thus reflecting how it was commonly perceived in the immediate aftermath of the shelling of Fort Sumter on April 12th 1861. Nashville is harrowing and disturbing rather than romantic and here lies it's strength. The novel is honest and if that means leaving me as a reader slightly uneasy then it's done exactly what good writing attempts to do - to make a difference.

Some books after their reading will sit on my shelf gathering dust, I don't think that Nashville will be given enough time to gather dust at all.